Production of (meth)acrylamide monomers, such as dimethylaminopropylmethacrylamide (“DMAPMA”), by aminolysis of a (meth)acrylate ester in the presence of a catalyst is known, but competing side reactions produce Michael addition adducts and typically lower the yield of DMAPMA product. The problem of competing side reactions has been addressed by cracking the adduct at high temperature in order to recover DMAPMA, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,287,363, or by seeking to reduce the amount of the un-wanted adducts via use of a large excess of (meth)acrylate ester, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,206,143 and in DE 2,816,516. Cracking the adduct is tedious and may result in low yield due to the polymerization at the cracking temperature. In the latter process, the need to recover the non-reacted excess ester from the product mixture and the inefficient utilization of the reactor volume result in a very high cost (meth)acrylamide monomer product.
What is needed in the art is a more convenient and/or lower cost route to (meth)acrylamide monomers.